C2H Tea Kadai

A tea kadai is the roadside tea shop every Tamil town runs on: a kettle, a fryer, and whatever came out of it in the last ten minutes. You order a snack, you get a tea, you stand there and eat it.

Every item on this board is $10.99 and comes with three chutneys — coconut, kara and peanut — and a hot masala chai. That is why a samosa here costs more than the same samosa in our appetizers: it is a different order, not a different price.

Vadai in three kinds, bajji in five, bonda, pakoda, samosa, and punugulu from Andhra — crisp fried dumplings of fermented batter, plain or spiked with onion.

Friday to Sunday, 3 to 5 PM — the gap between lunch and dinner, which is exactly when a tea shop is busiest.